* Most urban areas of 2030 not yet built – U.N. study
* Means chance to include parks, trees in city plans
* Most city growth projected for China, India
By Alister Doyle
OSLO, Oct 15 (Reuters) – The world’s urban areas will more
than double in size by 2030, presenting an opportunity to build
greener and healthier cities, a U.N. study showed on Monday.
Simple planning measures such as more parks, trees or roof
gardens could make cities less polluted and help protect plants
and animals, especially in emerging nations led by China and
India where city growth will be fastest, it said.
“Rich biodiversity can exist in cities and is extremely
critical to people’s health and well-being,” wrote Thomas
Elmqvist of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, scientific editor
of the Cities and Biodiversity Outlook.
The world’s urban population is expected to surge from just
over 3.5 billion now to 4.9 billion by 2030, according to the
assessment by the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.
At the same time, the area to be covered by cities will
expand by 150 percent, it said.
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